City Commission - Regular Meeting

All right.

I'm calling the Thursday, July 9th, 2026 City Commission meeting to order. All five commissioners are present. First item, the order of business, consideration of approval of the minutes from the meeting on June 25th. Questions, changes, comments?

I see none. Sean thinks they're fabulous, so we're good. Okay.

Marked as fabulous. All right. Next is citizen comments for non-agenda items. Anyone wishing to speak to the commission now may come up to the podium and state your piece.

Anybody?

Anybody?

Okay.

Didn't want to move on without giving you your opportunity.

All right. Perfect.

All right.

Well, you guys should have...

place bets of whether I would be here this afternoon I spent all my money farmers Toby could have won twenty dollars probably he knows I'm he knows me better than most of you he knows I'm reliable two pages total right just the one yeah okay perfect okay and then if you say your name for the record and then let us let us know close enough to the mic here uh Reuben Shuckman You know, when I've corresponded with each of you, I've tried to be more than just someone that complains about a problem. I've tried to be a problem solver and offer solutions with new out-of-the-box ideas, which you have received. But this afternoon, you'll pick up on some of my frustrations. It was a very stressful night for me on July 4th. Something I've learned this past year is that many people do not feel comfortable contacting you about problems they have with fireworks. I don't know what the deal is. They don't think it's going to do any good. You'll listen, but nothing gets done. Nothing will change. These people that won't contact you, they have no problem telling me all their complaints they have with fireworks. But a little humor here. I guess I was hoping that one of you would volunteer to crawl up on a ladder to pick all the fireworks trash that landed in my gutters and roof and yard for several nights. There was a lot. And little old ladies shouldn't have to deal with the hassle of fireworks trash on their property deposited there by neighbors. But the city says, that's OK. We're fine with other people littering on other people's lawns. And we've got to pick it up. So basically, each one of you condones it and says, we don't need to take any action with these problems that litter up other people's property. But what if someone came with a bucket of fireworks trash and dumped it all over your property? I believe that would be illegal. Maybe the police would get called. But as long as the fireworks trash and litter lands on someone's property by coming through the air, that's okay. That method of littering is approved. The city says no problem with other people littering on other people's property as long as it flies through the air. And with all these loud explosions every year, night after night, it's finally got so bad, thank goodness the church, the Episcopal Church way out in the country came up with an option for veterans and others who need to get away from all this warlike activity for at least one night of peace and quiet. But what does that say about our community? We have to pack up our veterans in a bus and send them out of town, leave their homes for the evening just to get away from all this noise? It should be the fireworks out miles in the country, not the people. Let the people stay in the quiet surroundings of their home. And many dog owners have serious problems with loud fireworks and the really big problem with the environmentalist group of people in Hays, they hate the pollution. You have received proposals that help solve most of the problems that many groups of people have with fireworks problems. And let me be clear, most are not against fireworks, they are against all the problems they cause. which all of you are aware of and the compromise solution still allows all those clubs and school groups to sell all the fireworks they want and maybe even more if it's planned out and done correctly you know hayes has the reputation across the state of kansas for creative ways to solve water problems why can't hayes also be on the cutting edge and be the leader with ingenious fresh new ideas with the fireworks problems But first, you do have to realize fireworks do cause problems for a lot of people, and those problems are not going away on their own. I would be glad to volunteer to help you solve these problems. Thank you.

Thank you, Ruben, and thanks for the information. Anyone else like to speak currently? move on to the consent agenda only one thing on here currently the mayoral appointment recommendation for the a CVB advisory board there's an opening for a hotel representative we had an application Sorry, Daisy. So Daisy and she, oh, sorry.

Go ahead.

She has experience with another community she lived in on both their chamber board and their CVB advisory committee for hotels.

Move approval of consent agenda.

Second.

Second.

Motion by Commissioner Jacobs. Second by Commissioner Cunningham. Questions, comments on this one? Now I'll call for a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Passes 5-0. on New Business 2026 Sanitary Sewer Point Repairs and Lining Project Award of Bid. Jeff.

Good afternoon, Commissioners. Jeff Crispin. I'm the Director of Water Resources. The capital improvement plan for 2026 includes a sanitary sewer repairs and lining project. This is consistent with similar work that we've done over the past five, six years. The general area for this year's project is between Hall and Vine, south of 33rd Street. It's the area that's outlined in green, goes all the way down to about 4th Street, encompasses all that area. This visual was included in your packet. Staff developed this year's project anticipating completion of 1,943 linear feet of sanitary sewer lining, which is from manhole to manhole, and 20 internal point repairs at multiple locations within the City of Hays. Originally using 2024 project line item pricing, we bid out 1,943 linear feet of manhole to manhole and 20 individual patches. On this visual, the lining from manhole to manhole is the red lines. And so those are four locations and that encompasses that 1,943 linear feet. So in green, also on the visual, those are the locations of the 20 patches. And as I mentioned last week at the work session, you may have one of those lines like in the western part of Hays, along Hall there, that might have five or six patches within that stretch, but all 20 original patches were within those green After we opened bids and we went back to Mayor Specialty Services, the apparent low bidder, we asked them to bid out some additional patches to get some more work done. For reference, those locations we added to those yellow spots on the map. Again, those 35 additional spots, there's not 35 individual lines there. there are a few locations where there's multiple patches within those lines. So what you see there, if you approve it tonight, we will get 1,943 linear feet of lining and 55 total patches. The city has made significant progress in maintaining and repairing our sanitary sewer system. This visual only shows what's been completed since 2020. In 2018, we started a project to line and patch sanitary sewer system, and since then we've performed over $1.5 million worth of repairs. Initially, the way we started it was we knew we had this big list that we wanted to accomplish, and we start taking off the hardest stuff first. And we would do one year of lining, then the next year we would do patching, and then lining, and then patching. And then we kind of morphed into where we're at now. We're doing a combination. All the repairs that we've made and we want to continue to make are based off that sewer line cleaning and inspection project that we do every year, where we do 20% of the town. We get the video data, we get the still shots, we get all the reports that show us where those problems are, then we add them to a future repair project. Due to our progress that we've been made, it's becoming more and more difficult for us to find enough locations to meet that budget of $350,000. And I put in here, what a problem to have. In the future, as I mentioned last week, what we're planning to do is probably 2028, we would combine both projects, the sewer line cleaning project that we spend $150,000, $175,000 a year, and that $350,000 project, combine them, won't be the total budget of both, but be able to do cleaning and CCTV, which is the inspection, and then also do a lot of those repairs as we're going through that project. So that's what we would plan on in the future. There are different types of repairs that we've used in the City of Hays. Trenchless patches or internal point repairs, the lining from manhole to manhole, and then open cut repairs. Earlier on when we realized that we had some big problem areas, those would have to be dug up and they were such, those lines were such that you had to actually have those physically cut open, get down to them, and they would have to put in new pipe and make that connection. But we've taken care of those issues. So now we're just doing the internal patches and the lining from manhole to manhole. This is what it looks like with the patch project. They would take, this is called a packer unit, and that's the side view of the sewer line. The packer is, the patch is put on The outside of the packer, it goes to where the problem area is. That packer expands all the while sewers flowing right through it. We don't have to shut down service. And for a certain amount of time, that patch will cure. I always use the term of Band-Aid, but it's much better than a Band-Aid on a sewer line. Same type of material as we do when we do the lining, but it cures in place and then they remove that and they move to the next location. All this is found from previous inspection reports we know exactly where the problem is and then they come in when they do this project and they actually pre clean the line they know exactly where the problem is and so they go in and put in the patch while they're while they're there Sewer lining is an impressive product for us. It's trenchless, quick, cost-effective. There's different types of lining. We've used different types of liners in our projects before. It could be polyester vinyl, epoxy resin, or a like material, and it's pulled from one manhole to another, and then it's inflated with steam or water. It's given a certain amount of time to cure. Once complete, problems such as infiltration, leakage, and deteriorating infrastructure repaired the sewer can remain in service during this project just like it would be with the patches and once in place the contractor then will they'll cut the ends of it at each manhole they'll take their equipment in there they'll go to where the tap is for the business or for their resident and then that cuts open that tap and then it reestablishes and Like I mentioned last week, the contractors that do this process, they put out door knockers, they talk to the area residents, basically asking them to not use your facilities or don't flush something for the next three hours, those type things, and that way they can get that work done.

Jeff, what's the longest they ever have to ask them to not, is three hours normal?

Three hours is typical, yeah. I've seen some of them go up to five hours, but they try to actually do these at times when most people are at work. You're never going to get nobody on the block, but you do have some time. Running a little bit of water in a sink, flushing the toilet is probably going to be okay, but a prolonged issue would fill up the private line, and we wouldn't want that.

Thank you.

You bet. This is a video from 13th and Hall from a previous year. And that's just the liner being installed down into the manhole. Somebody's down at the other manhole waiting for it to actually come out. And then once it's complete, they will blow it up with steam or water and then they'll reestablish those taps. So it's pretty slick process, pretty safe process. This product that Mayer is recommending we've used before, it comes in on spools. They put the spools into a steam trailer and the spools are hardened because it's wrapped around the spools and then it softens and then they're able to actually pull it through and fix the problem. And as I mentioned too last week, the liner itself is very, very thin. It's no more than a quarter inch. And so when you think about an eight inch sewer pipe, it's not squeezing down that sewer pipe very much just by an extra quarter of an inch on the inside of it, but it's like a brand new pipe. This is kind of what it looks like on the lining. The left side you can see that there's damaged pipe, there's soil, there's cracks all over the place. I mean it's not gonna look perfectly smooth like it does on, the right looks a lot better and it's keeping all the soil out and protecting the integrity of that line. But it does show on the side, it does see some, you see some of the things, but all in all you have basically a brand new line that's put through there. After the question last week, I can't remember which commissioner asked it, I apologize, but I was asked about what type of material and how much do we have in the ground. VCP, vitrified clay pipe, I can never say that right. I apologize. That's about 93% of what we have in our system. And so everything in brown on that map, which is a little bit easier to see than all the other colors, that is what is used, had been used. And if you look down there in the far southern part of the city of Hays, Oldest part of Hayes. I kind of went over and I looked at some, I looked on GIS, looked at some of the houses. You know, houses were built in 1940 on this block. So you can kind of estimate that probably the sewer went in about that time. That kind of pipe can get you about 100 plus years. So it is good pipe, but it is breakable just like anything is. We had went away quite a few years ago to only doing PVC. So if you look at the blue spots in town, all the blue is PVC sewer line. So that makes up, and I know it's hard for you to see that, PVC is about 19.81%. Hold on, back up. PVC is 19.81 miles, not percent. VCP is 93 miles. I apologize. There's some other things. Force main, if you look along the bypass, that's our force main. The reason there's a force main there, it's a different type of pipe. It actually is pushing from one lift station around the bypass to get it up and over. a hill so we can actually gravity into the sewer plant. We have some private lines. Prairie Acres is private. You can kind of barely see it, but where the Big Creek Mall is, that's all private sewer in there. So that's in red. So there's some different types of lines that we don't necessarily clean because they're private or we have forced main. But for the most part, most of our line is VCP that's in the ground 93 miles. And as we are switching out any projects we change over to Into PVC. So hopefully that helps a little bit with last week's question.

Yes You said something's like 1940s early 50s.

So that's able to be lined if we need to yes Yeah, it can be lined and that's eight inch and some of those some of those we've seen where we've lined Let me well, I hope I'm right. Let me look real quick.

I

So you see the red lines down by campus? Hey, I got one of these things. Am I doing this right? Oh boy. So that one was lined. And that's down by campus. So that was probably line that was from 1940, 1950. That's awesome.

Because what is the cost per mile to switch from BCP to PVC?

I'll have to get back with you on that off the top of my head. I wish I had I should have the bid document.

Well, I could look more than the linear foot line.

Yes, yes, absolutely. Okay, so that was on the material. So we solicited proposals for multiple contractors, as we always do with all of our projects. Like I mentioned, in developing our estimate for 2026, we use 24 pricing, when the bids were open pricing was much more favorable than we anticipated. A large portion of the savings for our 2026 bids was that Mayor's proposed liner is not as expensive as what was used by CC Steel in 2024. Very adequate, very commonly used. It's one that we've used before, but that difference equated to about $132,000 less than we anticipated when we were putting the project together. And so that's where we had quite a bit of savings. And like I said, both materials, all the types of materials we've used for all of our projects, none of it's failed. Everything, when they go through and they do the next cleaning project and they go right through one of those lines to do cleaning and inspection, they're clean, nothing's failed, nothing's having a problem. It's like a brand new pipe. So we've had seen, we have seen great success with that. I mentioned this last week, too. We do not have a, excuse me, we don't have a mayor contractor rating sheet for this project. Back in 2022, we just, for some reason, we didn't have one in there. But mayor we've worked with significantly on the manhole rehab project. They use similar type of material when they're doing our manholes, similar type of crew, similar project manager. I'm very confident that mayor will do a good job for us because they have in the past, and we'll work on making sure that if this is approved, we don't miss another contractor rating sheet.

Do we have a contractor rating sheet on them from any of the other projects I've done?

Yes. I have six years of contractor rating sheets for manhole rehab. Thank you. Work has been great, easy to work with. If you do award it tonight, it would start September 1st, and it would go through December 31st would be the last date. And I put in there the original bids in bold, but the base plus the additional patches, 254,640 is what we're asking you to approve today. So for financial consideration, we budgeted $350,000. We're recommending the project costs, as I mentioned, and that is a remaining balance of $95,360 from what we budgeted. Mentioned again that in future years, we'll be looking at doing some combination of a project. That way, we can kind of get it. So I wouldn't come in front of you more than once. I would be once for both projects. So these are your options to approve it, to direct us to another option, or to do nothing. And this is the action I would request, and I would stand for your additional questions.

I'll move. We authorize the city manager to enter into an agreement with Meyer Specialty Services to complete the 2026 sanitary sewer point repairs and lining project for $254,640 to be funded from the water reclamation capital.

I second it. Motion by Commissioner Musil, seconded by Commissioner Valesi. Questions or comments for Jeff?

Is there any, I'm trying to find it, but I don't see, is there any manholes being redone this time?

Yeah, I'm working on the project right now to come back to you.

That's a separate project? Yep. Okay.

Yeah, we haven't brought that to you just yet. Okay. But that will be coming.

Jeff, I appreciate you consistently doing this. To me, this is just as important as the water lines and street maintenance, stuff like that. It's just something we have to do to keep on top of. So I appreciate very much what you're doing with this.

sometimes it's hard because you don't see it exactly you know you use it yep we have a city in the state that's struggling right now with water issues and pipes and all the stuff that isn't done not a pretty situation I'm certainly glad we don't have to deal with anything like that because projects like this

I like the maintenance and keeping up on things. I've said that multiple times. I like that you've got a structured format that's showing improvement, so much improvement, so that you're hunting for more projects to add to it. It sounds like you're on the right path there. My thought for the commission is if we're coming in under budget $100,000, instead of putting the money back into this, maybe that's $100,000 we could use to save the citizens a little bit down the road. We've still got a good program. We're still getting ahead of the curve with what you're doing. And I love that. You should be commended for that. But instead of just continuing to use more of that money, why not rebudget it and save somewhere else in the budget? That's my thoughts.

And I mentioned last week, Commissioner, that we do have in the future, you know, we need to be looking at our force mains and we will. We just spent quite a bit of money to upgrade that Highway 40 lift station that was approved a couple of years ago. You know, we are going to have some other maintenance coming up for some lift stations. So it is all part of the maintenance of it. And there's always going to be some repairs to the sewer line system, but we've made some significant progress that will help us in the future. Keep budgeting for those big plans.

Yep.

I just appreciate that while we were looking at doing those 20 repairs, with it coming in so much under budget, that you went ahead and looked how many more we could take care of this year instead of waiting when potentially they cost more. So thank you.

Jeff, the question I had for you, is you know comparing what we what cccl had in 2024 and these ones that we had the reinstate service connection was quite a bit higher i mean it was back when we did it with cc steel now they're both very much cheaper which i appreciate yeah um do you know why that cc steel had a change in leadership as far as their their project manager moved to a different company

We've worked with him many times before. I think there might have been some estimating issues with what was going on there. They've had some changes in who's doing their bidding. CC Steel, it's quite a ways for them to actually come down here. It's like three states away.

No, thank you for that. Yeah, and it's something that I think we kind of talked about last week, too, you know, the importance of preventative maintenance before it becomes too much of a problem that you do have to go in and do complete trenches, replace entire lines, and then it gets really expensive, service gets cut while you're waiting to get that done. and you're tearing up street exactly gets really expensive really fast so be able to do this one under budget um and looking forward to hey we can attack something else before it rises in cost because nothing ever goes down um i appreciate you looking into that and being proactive with it um with uh commissioner of licensing's question the water reclamation capital can We can shift money wherever we want, can't we? Well... That's what I wanted to verify.

So, yeah, when you collect, when you levy a rate or collect a rate from users, part of that's used for operations, part of it's used for water production, part of it is transferred to reserves to be used for capital projects like this. Right. So, I think what... Jeff was saying the question was we kind of have capital needs that are in excess of our capital dollars you know so if we are able to lower our estimate on this because we're maybe catching up with the maintenance and keep in mind we didn't budget any money for sewer maintenance until about eight years ago right and so we had to play a lot of catch-up including like digging up Main Street to replace it you know things like that But if we're catching up, he's got lots of other things he could reallocate that to, you know, to make sure that we're keeping those things covered.

Okay. So the revenue is not outpacing projects? What's that? Revenue is not outpacing projects.

And we've got other projects like some other demo at the wastewater treatment plant that we've got planned in the future. You'll see on CIP for the future. So there is some different things that we need to be prepared for.

Now, I would say, from a solvency standpoint, we're more solvent in wastewater than water. When you look at the buffer and the comfort zone, We're way more comfortable in wastewater than we are with this water.

And it's a little bit different funding, but we also are paying back for our wastewater treatment plan upgrade, too. We're making an SRF payment every year.

To be clear, the money in wastewater, let's say we save another $100,000 next year. Mm-hmm. money you put in general fund no that has to stay it stays within it stays in the wastewater what you could do is you could push off rate increases right right the more money you save you don't spend you push out necessary rate increase okay yep it's just because of the funding source yeah okay okay Does that make sense? Yeah. Okay.

Good question. I didn't know the answer to that either. Okay. Any other questions or comments on the sanitary sewer point? Okay. I'll call for the vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Passes 5-0. Thanks, Jeff. Thank you. Resolution authorizing the offering for sale of general obligation securities, the sale resolution.

Kim. Good afternoon, Commissioners. Kim Rupp, Director of Finance. Just a real quick resolution for you today. This is the next step in the process of doing a bond issue in the fall. This particular bond issue will take care of the infrastructure for Tallgrass Phase 4, as well as the exit 161. We have to ask for the maximum in these documents because we, particularly the exit 161, we did issue temporary notes of four million so we have to ask for that. The sizing of that bond will come in August. Likely the exit 161 will be more around the 1.3, 1.4 million because we did get the Grohays economic grant that we were able to apply towards that. So to provide an orderly plan of finance for the city, staff recommends that the city issue general obligation bonds to fund the Tallgrass Phase 4 infrastructure and permanently finance the exit 161 infrastructure. State law and capital market structures require that city staff and the city's advisors take various actions prior to city offering any of its general obligation bonds or temporary notes for sale. Those actions may include publication requirements, offering documents drafting, and other preparations to receive bids on the securities for sale, approval of the sale resolution, that we have before you will authorize all necessary actions to offer for sale the City's general obligation bonds for the purpose stated. If the sale resolution is approved, the City will prepare to solicit and receive bids for the sale of those securities. The bids will be presented to you for approval in its meeting in August, where the Commission can accept the best bid or reject all of those. So pretty straightforward, not much to it. Options would be to approve that resolution, decline, or provide us with other direction, and we would ask for approval.

I move approval of resolution number 2026-011, authorizing the offering for sale of the state's general obligation bonds and or temporary notes.

I second it. Motion by Commissioner Jacobs, seconded by Commissioner Lysing. Question or comments for Kim?

It's nice to get the money back from Grohase on getting money from the grant. I think we should make that clear. I took it from $4 million to $1.3 million. That's a big deal. We've kind of gone over it every time we go through it, but I'm going to keep talking about it. Big deal, those grants. Correct. Helping us out.

And then just verification, this is not an increase in, we have dedicated funding sources for these set up already.

At this point we are able, so the exit 161 is the portion that the city is responsible for. The other, the tall grass, that's gonna be RHID funded. Ultimately, if the RHID revenue doesn't meet that need, then we would have to possibly levy for it. But at this time, projections show that won't occur. So the exit 161 does include in 2027. So we're doing the bond at 26. Payments start in 27. 27's budget that we've put before you has this included in it. Yes.

Perfect. Okay.

Any other questions?

And the amount for that levy actually is going down from what it was the previous year.

Yeah, the proposed levy for the bond and interest is lower than last year.

The levy rate is correct. Correct. Yes.

Okay. Okay.

Anything else?

Okay.

Call for a vote on that. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Passes 5-0.

Thank you.

Thanks, Kim.

Thank you, Kim.

All right. Commissioning inquiries and comments. Commissioner Blyson.

I really wish Ruben would have stuck around. I was going to talk to him I guess a little bit, but hopefully he watches this or listens to it later. It's frustrating when our neighbors aren't good neighbors and they make a mess and it ends up in our yards. I've experienced it, I didn't like it, but like a good neighbor, I talk to my neighbors and we work together as a community to clean up and to pick up and to be good neighbors. If Ruben's getting up there in age, he needs some help, You know, my number's out there. Give me a call. I didn't get his email. He said he sent everybody's. So I just checked as soon as he sent us an email. I didn't see it. So I hope in the future he gives me a call. I'd be more than happy to come out there July 5th, help him pick up trash. I might even talk to some of the veteran organizations and some of the Boy Scout groups or something. See if we can't get something put together and organized to help out the elderly after the Fourth of July. This is a community event. We need to work together as a community. That's what makes the Fourth of July so great. And yeah, we only celebrate it once a year. But it's what makes us special as a country. There's holidays to get an entire month. We get one day. Why not let the folks have a couple of days to set off some fireworks and celebrate it the way it was intended? I think John Adams said it, something along the lines of the Fourth of July should be celebrated with pomp and circumstance. He didn't use fireworks, but he said something of that nature. Tea in the harbor. That's our culture. That's America. So, Ruben, if you're listening, give me a call. I'll help you clean up those fireworks next year. As far as the budget goes, I've been digging through that, trying to find some creative ways maybe we can save. I hope the fellow commissioners are doing the same. I might reach out to a few of you and talk about some ideas I got. There's plenty of ways for us to save some funding. I know it's not going to make some people happy, but... People want reductions. They don't want the budget to stay the flat. They don't want revenue neutral. They want to be taxed less. So that's my thoughts. Let's give them what they want. Let's find some ways to tax them a little less.

Awesome. Thank you. Sandy.

I appreciate the comments on neighbors because we happen to be out of town for the weekend and anybody that wants to be really upset. We were at our grand our daughters and son-in-law's farm. He's a retired military retired Colonel. Every year he gets a bigger roll of firecrackers. This year it had 6000 Just likes that puppy. Rolls it out there and puts it around. Just likes it. Most miserable thing, but we give him the honor of doing it himself. But when we got back, interestingly, neighbors to the street south of us came over with their little boy. And they said, we think you have some bottle rockets in your backyard that came from us. We didn't want to go in your backyard when you're gone. So we opened, sure enough, there were three bottle rockets back there, and they came over to get them out. So I thought that was very nice. We do need to be good neighbors. I really don't have anything else.

people all ask the same thing this week and I wish like you said Mr. Shookman would have stayed I was actually messaged from some of his neighbors and they've all lived there forever and said they're very neighborly they're all friendly and they you know have a good time together and they they feel concerned you know Ruben's out there taking photos of them and they feel uncomfortable and back to what you said you know maybe just go talk to your neighbors you know and I have neighbors to the south that They shoot out more fireworks than I would ever shoot off, but you get up the next morning and it's usually cleaned up. I had some in my backyard. I cleaned it up and it took me probably less than five minutes and stuff. I don't know. I mean, the only way you're going to solve this, we either don't have them or we have them. There's no way to make everybody happy. And I will tell you, if we don't have them, there's going to be, I would say more than 50% of this town is going to be really pissed off at us. You're going to be upset. That's a good word, too. But I'm not at the point to where I would not be against maybe changing how many days we have it, but I don't know. I don't think it's going to make him any happier personally. But I appreciate his comments. I appreciate what he gave us. He's done this for the last few years. And, I mean, he's not wrong on anything he says. But I also think if you just talk to your neighbors directly instead of sneaking around and taking photos, maybe they'd get along a little bit better, in my opinion. That's all I got. Okay. Thank you.

Commissioner Cunningham.

So again, I wanted to make some comments on fireworks. I happened to receive several emails over the week that were commending the city of Hays in allowing fireworks and kind of that commodity that it provided the neighborhoods or organizations that gathered. It was a very big year, the 250th. I wanted to just kind of read an excerpt out of one of the emails I received. I did receive several. They all were very positive and thankful. This one just highlights basically what most commissioners have already stated, but this little excerpt says, I understand that not everyone enjoys fireworks and that balancing the interest of an entire community is not an easy task. While there will always be a small number of people who come with complaints, know that most Hays residents are truly grateful for the decision on fireworks. We hope that those voices are not overshadowed. We took the opportunity to drive around Hays this week and were greatly and genuinely impressed at how well the community cared for the city after the holiday. There were a few pieces of debris that might have been missed here or there, but in large, most of it had been picked up and residents had cleaned after themselves by taking pride in keeping Hays beautiful. It's encouraging to see our community not only enjoy the holiday, but also take responsibility for preserving the city we all call home. So I just wanted to share those comments. I thought that it was very well written and I know that not everybody picks up after themselves, but I think the majority as a whole, we do a good job. I know our cul-de-sac personally was a little quieter this year. Not as many fireworks, but still we have a lot of teenagers in our neighborhood now. They're all growing and they did a good job of gathering up the bulk. And then I will say the adults gathered midday the next day and did a really good clean sweep of everything. So I hope the majority of people did get to enjoy the holiday. That's all I have.

Amen. Can I say one more thing? Something that Ruben said that kind of concerned me is saying that people are scared to talk to us or afraid we won't listen. Couldn't be further from the truth. None of us would not respond to somebody. You may not agree or we may not agree with you, but all of us, if you email us, we always respond. You call, we call back. So I hope nobody's ever scared to contact any of us.

Agreed. Yeah, I thought it was... I thought it was a great Fourth of July. The parade was really, really wonderful, really well attended. I heard a lot of good things about Wild West Fest, three amazing bands. And yeah, the Night of the Fireworks, something that we did is we made my kids their cousins, if they noticed any trash on the ground, they picked it up. We had our bucket. We put all the trash in, made sure it was disposed of properly. But we told them, if you get anything out, you make a mess, you notice a mess, pick it up. And they did. After everything was done, after all the time had expired for shooting them off, I walked around kind of up and down my street on both sides of the flashlight and went and picked stuff out of people's yards for them. You know, it's one thing less you got to do. But it's just the neighborly thing to do. I don't think you're going to be able to legislate being a neighbor. You're going to have to.

Kind of like being a parent.

Yeah. You can't legislate parenting, and you can't legislate being a neighbor. You've got to actually communicate with one another and understand that your actions can affect people. And the best way to do that is communicate with them and come up with a solution together. And then I'd also heard the event that happened at the church north of town for the veterans. I believe the women who lead the organization helped cover the cost for that. They had actually people from the event in Hutchinson at the salt mine was actually full. So they had people from Hutchinson come out to that event, which I think was a lot of fun. That's cool. Wow. Any idea of the number? That I don't know. I can find a number out. but i know that they're looking at maybe trying to expand it even more next year um to accept people from outside the community as well who want to participate so i think that's still the salt mine yeah the salt mine was full i mean that'd be a cool place to celebrate i mean there's little things down there um but yeah i mean offering that's how things get happening how things happen community came together and provided that option for you um I know there's a few different organizations looking at doing something for pets, too. So it's community coming together. We're not going to legislate our way out of that. I think other than that, I don't have anything else really to talk about. And we have an executive session, I believe.

I would request the city commission enter into an executive session to include the city commission, city attorney, city manager, deputy city manager, assistant city manager for a period not to exceed 20 minutes to discuss confidential data relating to financial affairs or trade secrets of corporations, partnerships, trust, and individual proprietorships. So moved. Second.

Motion by Commissioner Jacobs, second by Commissioner Cunningham. Questions or comments? Call for a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Passes 5-0.